


How

by Kahvi



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2206428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olaf Petersen just got cheated out of a date with a least one girl... and he's not about to let Lister get away with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How

"Lister! Where are you, you queer little English bastard!" Olaf Petersen fumed as he traversed the long, boring corridors of the ship that should, had those naming it paid any attention whatsoever to the _insides_ , by all rights be called _Grey_ Dwarf. He was not having a good day.

The business with the girls had only been the beginning. They'd had a good laugh at his expense, of course, before giving him a sisterly - _sisterly_ \- kiss on the smegging cheek, and asking him if his cute boyfriend had any brothers. That had been the last straw. Lister hadn't been at any of his usual haunts, so Petersen had spent a considerably unproductive half-hour arguing with Holly, who had claimed Lister had been off on ship-painting duties all day, which was obviously not true. He'd managed to get a hold of himself before security was called in, but the episode had only served to aggravate him even more, and now Holly was giving him odd looks whenever he passed a monitor. That's all he needed; the twonking ship's computer thinking the two of them were an item! Lister, he decided, was going to pay so hard he'd be in debt deep enough to have to pass on to his grandchildren. It was time to settle things, Copenhagen style.

The door to Lister's quarters was open, which was as expected. The only person who ever locked them was Rimmer, and then only when he was in the middle of last-minute-panic cramming for those stupid exams. What was unexpected was the sight of Lister, in the middle of the floor, struggling groggily out of a paint-slathered space-suit. So he _had_ been on ship-painting duties? But when? No matter. Petersen barged in, and collided solidly with the table, which had clearly been moved recently. Petersen made a habit of memorizing the layout of rooms, just in case he ever needed to navigate around them in the dark, or while blind drunk, and he could have sworn that table hadn't been there yesterday. Hopping on one foot, and nursing his knee, he yelled a string of Danish obscenities towards the bewildered looking Lister.

"Petersen, man," the scouser slurred, as though he'd been asleep for some time. "What are ye doing here? I thought we weren't going out until later." He looked down at himself, forlornly. "Don't think I'm up to it yet, guy. Been trying to sleep off the worst of it, but it's hard work, painting. Can ya come back in an hour?"

Navigating around the table as best he could with only one fully operational leg, Petersen advanced on Lister. "We're not going out!"

Lister paused in his attempts at removing his right, particularly stubborn boot. "Eh?"

"No!" It was hard to stay angry with that sleepy, innocent-looking face staring at him, but Petersen persisted. Those girls had been _hot_! “We’re not going smegging anywhere until you tell me what that little stunt was all about!”

“Stunt?” Lister stretched his neck, probably still stiff from the nap he had taken. “What’re ye on about?”

Petersen scrunched his face up into a frustrated grimace. No one could play dumb like Lister. There would be no use trying to confront him, he knew. Better to just go on ahead. “This is about what happened on Callisto, isn’t it?”

“Wha?”

“Planet leave. Two weeks ago. When we…” Petersen cringed, “…Got the tattoos.” As if Lister didn’t know.

“Oh, eh.”

Oh eh? _Oh, eh?_? What did that even mean? It was just sounds, meaningless little noises that Lister made all the time, even when… No, he couldn’t think about that now! Petersen’s English was actually rather good, but Lister didn’t seem to speak English. No, his was a language of never-ending vowels presented in a sing-song voice less comprehensible than a subway station announcer during Christmas rush-hour. “I thought we agreed,” he muttered, as angrily as he could, looking straight into Lister’s oh-so honest face, “that didn’t mean anything.”

Lister scratched the back of his head where those matted, coarse dreadlocks began, and pursed his lips, clearly thinking. “Don’t remember much about Callisto. Was that when we were at that bar? With the glow-in-the-dark strippers?”

He couldn’t possibly not remember, Petersen thought. Not considering what he had done this afternoon. “What’s your game, Lister?”

“Game?” Lister had given up on the boot and stood quite still now, one foot on the floor in just an orange, foul-smelling even from this distance, sock, the other in that sodding boot, with the space-suit bunched around it on the floor. If he looked the right way, and squinted, Petersen could just about make out the edge of the offending tattoo on Lister’s inner thigh, in bright, red ink. He shook his head to clear it.

“Fine.” Lister was clearly not in a mood to co-operate. Unsurprising; he very rarely was. He hated authority as much as he loved a good prank, and Petersen which he could be sure that the latter was what this afternoon’s episode had been an example of. He sighed, and rubbed his sore knee. “I’ll see you later.” When they had both forgotten about this, and there was nothing but drinks and jokes and fun, and other friends to keep them from getting into something that was clearly far too complicated for any of them to handle.

“No, wait; hang on!” Seeming to remember something, Lister stumbled out of his remaining boot, and grabbed Petersen’s shirt-sleeve as he was about to turn. Petersen looked down on it, not knowing quite what to feel. “Did ye see about that transfer thing? Harris over in Y-shift reckons we’d have to apply before we reach port again, ‘cause they’ve got new people coming in, and they’ll not want to muck about with logistics much after that.” He gave a hopeful smile.

Putting his own hand on Lister’s, and pushing it away very, very firmly, trying not to think about anything except the practical execution of that movement, Petersen met his gaze. “I don’t think that’s a good idea anymore, Dave… Right?”

Lister’s face collapsed into a frown, his lips parting just a little as he made that stupid sound again. “Eh?”

“Us bunking together; I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not,” he shifted uncomfortably, turning his head to stare steadily at the inflatable banana, “anymore. If you see what I mean?” He tried to imagine lying in that lower bunk night after night, eyes fixed on the mattress above him and knowing what was there… How did Rimmer manage?

“No, man,” Lister said, his voice flavored with anger and irritation, “I _don’t_! Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

But Petersen had already turned on his heel, and was halfway down the corridor to his own quarters, hoping he still had that stash of whiskey somewhere. It was going to be a long, lonely night if not. Well. It would be, regardless.

Lister watched the empty space which had, until mere seconds ago, contained catering officer Olaf Petersen.

What had happened?

He’d come back from ship-painting duty and fallen asleep, waking only to find a hastily scribbled note from Medical, saying that Rimmer had taken ill again, and would be gone for some time. Then, before he even had time to give that a good think, this happens. Now what? What was he supposed to have done?

Still groggy from hours of work and sleep, Lister stumbled towards the single, plastic chair this cruddy little room was fitted with, and slumped down. There used to be two chairs, but Rimmer had removed the best one, on the grounds that he concentrated better in an uncomfortable chair, and if he had a good one around, he’d just be tempted to use it. Lister, apparently, was nowhere to be found in that supremely logical equation. Lister let his head drop to the table, quite hard, and banged his face against the surface once or twice, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

Rimmer. He was stuck with _Rimmer_ now! Stuck with endless astronavigation revision and ziggurats and never-ending RISK-stories and long cold showers in which the smeghead thought no one could hear him masturbate his lunch right out of his box to cries of “Oh yes, Yvonne, suck it _hard_!”

Lister fingered the note from Medical, lying on the table in front of him. The ink smeared slightly, discoloring his fingers as he swore. How had this happened? He remembered smeg all about Callisto, or any of the other places they had stopped at for that matter. If he wasn’t drunk out of his mind five minutes after hitting the bars, he considered the outing a complete and utter waste of time. He only remembered the strippers because they’d been bright and shiny enough to burn their images straight onto his retinas (which wasn’t a major problem, come to that), and the tattoo because it had been there when he woke up the morning after, and had not, despite his efforts, come off in the shower.

So how? What was he supposed to have done? And how was he supposed to manage more tedious months with the most tight-assed member JMC had ever seen? Like, in a _bad_ way, that is, not… Oh smeg, he couldn’t think. How had this happened? He didn’t understand.

How?


End file.
